ERYXIAS: I cannot say more than that if we require the same thing to
produce the same result, then it seems to me to be useful; if not, not.
SOCRATES: Then if without the aid of fire we could make a brazen statue,
we should not want fire for that purpose; and if we did not want it, it
would be useless to us? And the argument applies equally in other cases.
ERYXIAS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And therefore conditions which are not required for the
existence of a thing are not useful for the production of it?
ERYXIAS: Of course not.
SOCRATES: And if without gold or silver or anything else which we do not
use directly for the body in the way that we do food and drink and bedding
and houses,--if without these we could satisfy the wants of the body, they
would be of no use to us for that purpose?
ERYXIAS: They would not.
SOCRATES: They would no longer be regarded as wealth, because they are
useless, whereas that would be wealth which enabled us to obtain what was
useful to us?
ERYXIAS: O Socrates, you will never be able to persuade me that gold and
silver and similar things are not wealth. But I am very strongly of
opinion that things which are useless to us are not wealth, and that the
money which is useful for this purpose is of the greatest use; not that
these things are not useful towards life, if by them we can procure wealth.
SOCRATES: And how would you answer another question? There are persons,
are there not, who teach music and grammar and other arts for pay, and thus
procure those things of which they stand in need?
ERYXIAS: There are.
SOCRATES: And these men by the arts which they profess, and in exchange
for them, obtain the necessities of life just as we do by means of gold and
silver?
ERYXIAS: True.
SOCRATES: Then if they procure by this means what they want for the
purposes of life, that art will be useful towards life? For do we not say
that silver is useful because it enables us to supply our bodily needs?
ERYXIAS: We do.
SOCRATES: Then if these arts are reckoned among things useful, the arts
are wealth for the same reason as gold and silver are, for, clearly, the
possession of them gives wealth. Yet a little while ago we found it
difficult to accept the argument which proved that the wisest are the
wealthiest. But now there seems no escape from this conclusion. Suppose
that we are asked, 'Is a horse useful to everybody?' will not our reply be,
'No, but only to those who know how to use a horse?'
ERYXIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And so, too, physic is not useful to every one, but only to him
who knows how to use it?
ERYXIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And the same is the case with everything else?
ERYXIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then gold and silver and all the other elements which are
supposed to make up wealth are only useful to the person who knows how to
use them?
ERYXIAS: Exactly.
SOCRATES: And were we not saying before that it was the business of a good
man and a gentleman to know where and how anything should be used?
ERYXIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: The good and gentle, therefore will alone have profit from these
things, supposing at least that they know how to use them. But if so, to
them only will they seem to be wealth. It appears, however, that where a
person is ignorant of riding, and has horses which are useless to him, if
some one teaches him that art, he makes him also richer, for what was
before useless has now become useful to him, and in giving him knowledge he
has also conferred riches upon him.
ERYXIAS: That is the case.
SOCRATES: Yet I dare be sworn that Critias will not be moved a whit by the
argument.
CRITIAS: No, by heaven, I should be a madman if I were. But why do you
not finish the argument which proves that gold and silver and other things
which seem to be wealth are not real wealth? For I have been exceedingly
delighted to hear the discourses which you have just been holding.
SOCRATES: My argument, Critias (I said), appears to have given you the
same kind of pleasure which you might have derived from some rhapsode's
recitation of Homer; for you do not believe a word of what has been said.
But come now, give me an answer to this question. Are not certain things
useful to the builder when he is building a house?
CRITIAS: They are.
SOCRATES: And would you say that those things are useful which are
employed in house building,--stones and bricks and beams and the like, and
also the instruments with which the builder built the house, the beams and
stones which they provided, and again the instruments by which these were
obtained?
CRITIAS: It seems to me that they are all useful for building.
SOCRATES: And is it not true of every art, that not only the materials but
the instruments by which we procure them and without which the work could
not go on, are useful for that art?
CRITIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And further, the instruments by which the instruments are
procured, and so on, going back from stage to stage ad infinitum,--are not
all these, in your opinion, necessary in order to carry out the work?
CRITIAS: We may fairly suppose such to be the case.
SOCRATES: And if a man has food and drink and clothes and the other things
which are useful to the body, would he need gold or silver or any other
means by which he could procure that which he now has?
CRITIAS: I do not think so.
SOCRATES: Then you consider that a man never wants any of these things for
the use of the body?
CRITIAS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And if they appear useless to this end, ought they not always to
appear useless? For we have already laid down the principle that things
cannot be at one time useful and at another time not, in the same process.
CRITIAS: But in that respect your argument and mine are the same. For you
maintain if they are useful to a certain end, they can never become
useless; whereas I say that in order to accomplish some results bad things
are needed, and good for others.
SOCRATES: But can a bad thing be used to carry out a good purpose?
CRITIAS: I should say not.
SOCRATES: And we call those actions good which a man does for the sake of
virtue?
CRITIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But can a man learn any kind of knowledge which is imparted by
word of mouth if he is wholly deprived of the sense of hearing?
CRITIAS: Certainly not, I think.
SOCRATES: And will not hearing be useful for virtue, if virtue is taught
by hearing and we use the sense of hearing in giving instruction?
CRITIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And since medicine frees the sick man from his disease, that art
too may sometimes appear useful in the acquisition of virtue, e.g. when
hearing is procured by the aid of medicine.
CRITIAS: Very likely.
SOCRATES: But if, again, we obtain by wealth the aid of medicine, shall we
not regard wealth as useful for virtue?
CRITIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And also the instruments by which wealth is procured?
CRITIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then you think that a man may gain wealth by bad and disgraceful
means, and, having obtained the aid of medicine which enables him to
acquire the power of hearing, may use that very faculty for the acquisition
of virtue?
CRITIAS: Yes, I do.
SOCRATES: But can that which is evil be useful for virtue?
CRITIAS: No.
SOCRATES: It is not therefore necessary that the means by which we obtain
what is useful for a certain object should always be useful for the same
object: for it seems that bad actions may sometimes serve good purposes?
The matter will be still plainer if we look at it in this way:--If things
are useful towards the several ends for which they exist, which ends would
not come into existence without them, how would you regard them? Can
ignorance, for instance, be useful for knowledge, or disease for health, or
vice for virtue?
CRITIAS: Never.
SOCRATES: And yet we have already agreed--have we not?--that there can be
no knowledge where there has not previously been ignorance, nor health
where there has not been disease, nor virtue where there has not been vice?
CRITIAS: I think that we have.
SOCRATES: But then it would seem that the antecedents without which a
thing cannot exist are not necessarily useful to it. Otherwise ignorance
would appear useful for knowledge, disease for health, and vice for virtue.
Critias still showed great reluctance to accept any argument which went to
prove that all these things were useless. I saw that it was as difficult
to persuade him as (according to the proverb) it is to boil a stone, so I
said: Let us bid 'good-bye' to the discussion, since we cannot agree
whether these things are useful and a part of wealth or not. But what
shall we say to another question: Which is the happier and better man,--he
who requires the greatest quantity of necessaries for body and diet, or he
who requires only the fewest and least? The answer will perhaps become
more obvious if we suppose some one, comparing the man himself at different
times, to consider whether his condition is better when he is sick or when
he is well?
CRITIAS: That is not a question which needs much consideration.
SOCRATES: Probably, I said, every one can understand that health is a
better condition than disease. But when have we the greatest and the most
various needs, when we are sick or when we are well?
CRITIAS: When we are sick.
SOCRATES: And when we are in the worst state we have the greatest and most
especial need and desire of bodily pleasures?
CRITIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And seeing that a man is best off when he is least in need of
such things, does not the same reasoning apply to the case of any two
persons, of whom one has many and great wants and desires, and the other
few and moderate? For instance, some men are gamblers, some drunkards, and
some gluttons: and gambling and the love of drink and greediness are all
desires?
CRITIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But desires are only the lack of something: and those who have
the greatest desires are in a worse condition than those who have none or
very slight ones?
CRITIAS: Certainly I consider that those who have such wants are bad, and
that the greater their wants the worse they are.
SOCRATES: And do we think it possible that a thing should be useful for a
purpose unless we have need of it for that purpose?
CRITIAS: No.
SOCRATES: Then if these things are useful for supplying the needs of the
body, we must want them for that purpose?
CRITIAS: That is my opinion.
SOCRATES: And he to whom the greatest number of things are useful for his
purpose, will also want the greatest number of means of accomplishing it,
supposing that we necessarily feel the want of all useful things?
CRITIAS: It seems so.
SOCRATES: The argument proves then that he who has great riches has
likewise need of many things for the supply of the wants of the body; for
wealth appears useful towards that end. And the richest must be in the
worst condition, since they seem to be most in want of such things.
Euthydemus
by Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
INTRODUCTION.
The Euthydemus, though apt to be regarded by us only as an elaborate jest,
has also a very serious purpose. It may fairly claim to be the oldest
treatise on logic; for that science originates in the misunderstandings
which necessarily accompany the first efforts of speculation. Several of
the fallacies which are satirized in it reappear in the Sophistici Elenchi
of Aristotle and are retained at the end of our manuals of logic. But if
the order of history were followed, they should be placed not at the end
but at the beginning of them; for they belong to the age in which the human
mind was first making the attempt to distinguish thought from sense, and to
separate the universal from the particular or individual. How to put
together words or ideas, how to escape ambiguities in the meaning of terms
or in the structure of propositions, how to resist the fixed impression of
an 'eternal being' or 'perpetual flux,' how to distinguish between words
and things--these were problems not easy of solution in the infancy of
philosophy. They presented the same kind of difficulty to the half-
educated man which spelling or arithmetic do to the mind of a child. It
was long before the new world of ideas which had been sought after with
such passionate yearning was set in order and made ready for use. To us
the fallacies which arise in the pre-Socratic philosophy are trivial and
obsolete because we are no longer liable to fall into the errors which are
expressed by them. The intellectual world has become better assured to us,
and we are less likely to be imposed upon by illusions of words.
The logic of Aristotle is for the most part latent in the dialogues of
Plato. The nature of definition is explained not by rules but by examples
in the Charmides, Lysis, Laches, Protagoras, Meno, Euthyphro, Theaetetus,
Gorgias, Republic; the nature of division is likewise illustrated by
examples in the Sophist and Statesman; a scheme of categories is found in
the Philebus; the true doctrine of contradiction is taught, and the fallacy
of arguing in a circle is exposed in the Republic; the nature of synthesis
and analysis is graphically described in the Phaedrus; the nature of words
is analysed in the Cratylus; the form of the syllogism is indicated in the
genealogical trees of the Sophist and Statesman; a true doctrine of
predication and an analysis of the sentence are given in the Sophist; the
different meanings of one and being are worked out in the Parmenides. Here
we have most of the important elements of logic, not yet systematized or
reduced to an art or science, but scattered up and down as they would
naturally occur in ordinary discourse. They are of little or no use or
significance to us; but because we have grown out of the need of them we
should not therefore despise them. They are still interesting and
instructive for the light which they shed on the history of the human mind.
There are indeed many old fallacies which linger among us, and new ones are
